To ensure the safety of aircraft flying in any given airspace, each aircraft must have sufficient access to necessary RF spectrum so that it can communicate vital information back and forth between itself, other aircraft, and air traffic control. As an example, aircraft make particular use of 1030/1090 MHz frequency bands to transmit and receive information to and from other aircraft and Air Traffic Control. The 1030/1090 MHz spectrum is used extensively by the civil aviation community for collision avoidance systems and Air Traffic Control (ATC) and in the military context for Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) systems. Due to the increasing demand for spectrum coupled with increases in air traffic, there is a significant risk that an aircraft that is transmitting or receiving vital information may not have the necessary access to the RF spectrum to communicate with other aircraft or Air Traffic Control. Congestion in the RF spectrum can lead to the need for restrictions that limit the amount of interrogators or air traffic in a given airspace.
A system and method for detecting and quantifying signal congestion in an RF spectrum of a given airspace can be valuable to characterize the current congestion levels in a given spectrum. The systems and methods can also be used to predict the impacts on a given RF spectrum from changes to the types of signals and traffic being transmitted from aircraft and Air Traffic Control.